


It's Not Your Typical Love Story

by Clementines



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Multi, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4420085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clementines/pseuds/Clementines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clarke finally recognizes love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Not Your Typical Love Story

It’s not your typical love story.

 

When Clarke was a little girl, she liked listening to fairytales before drifting to sleep. Those old tales were always full of princes and princesses loving each other until death did them apart. It was always love at first sight and they would recognize it instantly. That was what love was about, used to think Clarke. It was a feeling so obvious you simply could not ignore it, like a pink elephant floating through space. She would have her own prince someday; she would instantly know it and everything would be simple and easy. Love had to be simple and easy, something to enjoy. 

Then she meets Finn and somehow it fits. He’s cute, charming and fun to be around. He makes her feel precious and is always extremely kind. It happens at first sight and it´s everything you could dream of until it’s not. Finn does not turn out like Clarke had hope he would but he still is the closest thing to a prince charming. What they have, whatever it is, is sweet and makes Clarke feel all warm inside. The relationship may not be but the feelings are easy and simple. It’s as obvious as it gets and, for a moment, Clarke is convinced this is it but it’s not. It’s beautiful but it’s not meant to last. Her love for Finn is what a first love should be like and it still gives her butterflies to think about it. He is like a cool summer breeze on a hot day and she’s grateful to have met him. When his life ends she is heartbroken, devastated even but she goes on because she knows he is not the one. 

When she was older, “a teenager full of hormones” as her father liked to put it, she became interested in another kind of stories. They did not talk about tender loves between nobles but about passions that could burn you to the bone. Easy and simple were not enough to describe love anymore, it had also to be challenging and unpredictable. You could be one person and become a totally different one in the name of love, that is how powerful the feeling was supposed to be. Clarke did not want a prince anymore but a warrior, someone who would turn her world upside down. 

Then she meets Lexa and she’s nothing like Finn. Lexa is strong, nerve wracking, fascinating and Clarke feels herself being attracted to her like a fly is to a moth. This time it’s nothing like a cool summer breeze, it´s like being caught in the inside of a volcano. There’s nothing easy or simple about Lexa, she’s a hurricane that changes Clarke’s world forever. Lexa forces her to reconsider everything she was sure of. Wrong and right stop meaning a single thing and survival definitely takes over. Looking into her clear eyes is like confronting a mirror and seeing the darkest part of you reflected in it. It’s not like Lexa is bad because she’s not worse than any of them but she takes Clarke to extremes the blonde tries hard to ignore. Lexa consumes her and it’s painfully delicious but it can’t last. It’s exhausting and they both know it cannot go on forever. It’s too intense, it’s too much. Their love is a constant war and no ones wants to live into one so when she leaves, Clarke is okay with it. Lexa is a breathtaking comet that passes through her life. It’s not meant to last but meaningful nonetheless. 

She was sixteen when she stumbled across that strange looking book in the library. Usually Clarke preferred science books but that afternoon, bored out of her mind, she decided to make an exception. It turned out to be a book about a literary genre of Ancient Greece, tragedy. Tragedy seemed to be about persons fighting a fate they do not stand a chance against. Prideful, strong people condemned to lose even when they win. A key concept in tragedy was one called “Anagnorisis” and Clarke became mesmerized by it. Two persons, deeply attached to each other, were separated for years and, upon meeting again, could not recognize one another because of the changes operated by time,. Sooner or later, however, they would know; it would be the familiarity of a lock of hair, the color of a voice or the warmness of a touch but they would know. That recognition is what the Greeks called Anagnorisis. She then discovered Plato’s story about soul mates; every person was a whole before being separated into two parts who would spend their lives looking for their missing pieces. It had to be an Anagnorisis, thought Clarke. Love had to be an Anagnorisis. 

It does not happen at first sight. In fact, it’s a very slow burn. The first time she meets Bellamy Blake, she thinks he’s an asshole. Could you blame her? The man wanted to kill her after all. Then something shifts, almost in an imperceptible way, and Bellamy becomes an equal, someone she can trust and who can understand. He becomes someone she can share her burden with and she’s extremely grateful for that. One day she wakes up and realizes Bellamy Blake is her best friend. She does not have any idea of when it happens exactly but it does. Soon enough, he becomes the most important person in her life, the one she would put over anyone else, the one she would protect with her own life. But that’s it. It’s nothing like romantic love. It’s strictly platonic. She does not see him that way until she does. 

It’s a late afternoon at the camp and they’re enjoying a rare moment of peacefulness. She likes to sit around the fire with Octavia and chat about unimportant matters, matters that allow them to forget all the weight they carry on their shoulders in order to feel like the young adults they should be. They’re playing a game that consists in describing their dreamed love’s features and Clarke cannot stop laughing at how much Octavia’s words describe Lincoln. It’s her turn and she bites her lip, thinking about all her conceptions and misconceptions of love before the words come out flowing out of her mouth. She says how much she’d like a deep connection that goes further than a physical attraction or a an infatuation; she talks about how much she desires someone she can consider an equal and who would see her likewise; she says the deep trust and the benevolent admiration she hopes for; she whispers the missing piece of herself she still wants to find and as her voice starts to tremble, Octavia smiles with an infinite tenderness at her and any trace of the warrior she has become disappears for a few seconds. Clarke looks at her, not understanding, and the brunette shakes her head smiling. Don’t you see, she asks, even after all this time don´t you see?

And that’s when, looking up, she sees Bellamy walking towards the other side of camp, an expression of sheer concentration on his face and that’s when it hits Clarke. Anagnorisis, that’s when it happens. It may have taken time but when it happens, there’s not stopping it; she now cannot ignore how deep their connection is, how real their trust is, how much she admires that man or how she can recognize in him the lost part of her Plato was talking about. Suddenly, Bellamy Blake is not only her best friend anymore but he’s a boy, someone she could fall in love with, someone she realizes she has already fallen in love with. Octavia is still looking at her, understanding written all over her face, touching her hand to comfort her. 

For the next few days, Clarke cannot wrap her head about it. He has been there all along but it’s as if she is seeing him for the first time. How could she not have noticed the way his tiny freckles fall upon his nose and cheeks before? What about that messy black hair she’s dying to explore with her hands? Suddenly, there’s nothing about Bellamy Blake she does not see. His way of moving, his laugh -the true one he only dedicates at her and Octavia-, his deep stares full of meaning... It is him. It has to be him. It has always been him. She confronts him one night when they are talking about strategies, responsibilities and hard decisions to make. She zones out looking at him and, ignoring his pleas to come back to reality, she takes his face into her hands and kisses him. 

It only lasts a few seconds but it’s everything she has been looking for. The expression of shock drawn on his face dissipates a few moments later and he gives her the smile that’s only for her. Bellamy Blake’s smile and not the rebel king’s smile or Octavia’s brother’s smile or the charmer’s smile. It’s just Bellamy’s smile before taking her face between his hands and saying with his cocky little smirk: “Took you long enough to figure that one out, princess.”

And as he initiates their second kiss, Clarke knows it’s love. She knows she can have it easy and simple with him as Finn gave her alongside the passion and challenge Lexa offered with the Anagnorisis only Bellamy can deliver. 

And in between the ruins of the old world and the vague promises and threats of the new one, Clarke Griffin feels complete for the first time.

It’ not your typical love story but it’s as real as it gets and she would not trade it for anything else in the world.


End file.
